


Good Ol' Days

by Oboeist3



Series: I Used To Have Short Hair [7]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Season/Series 05, Trans Character, Trans Eliot, in that the order and some of the details in the episode are changed basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 17:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16180199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oboeist3/pseuds/Oboeist3
Summary: "Hey, man, that, uh, stuff about your pop owning the hardware shop, man, is that real or is that just an alias riff?""Ask me again. Later. When the con is done."(A coda to the Low Low Price Job)





	Good Ol' Days

In the back of Lucille III, maybe IV, he can hardly remember, Eliot waits for the question. Hardison's careful, asking about past stuff, because some of it's classified, and his childhood, it can be a sore spot. A big aching bruise of lies and hiding and promises he could never have kept. But he cares too, so much that he mutes the comms, turns the bug's volume off before asking.

"Hey, man, that, uh, stuff about your pop owning the hardware shop, man, is that real or is that just an alias riff?" He hesitates, crosses his arms over his chest, like if he can protect his center of mass, the memories won't sting so badly.

"The store is, well more like a hole-in-the-wall, tools stacked up to the ceiling. There was method in his madness, though. He knew that place like the back of his hand. That was before Mom died." he says, bittersweet fondness in his voice. Hardison has this innocent devastation on his face, like it hurt him too.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up." he says, and he hates the way he says it, like he's the one who did something wrong. Eliot turns the volume back on the bug, turns towards the screen.

"Ask me again. Later. When the con is done."

Hardison nods, and they move on.

* * *

Two weeks after the BBQ, the Value!More closes, the town starts to recover. He has a nice chat with Tabitha as Hardison and Parker all but raid the candy store. They won't have to worry about business for a while, he thinks. There's some flirting, but they both know it's for the sake of it. He's still kind of wrung out, wasn't much to punch this time, so his brain keeps thinking, about things he usually doesn't think about. Things he can't afford to let himself think about.

He wanders into the park, and it's almost a relief when Hardison and Parker sit down next to him on a bench. She hands him a piece of bright blue saltwater taffy. He unwraps it but doesn't eat it, crinkles the paper between his fingers.

"I'm sorry about your Mom." she says, straight to the point. He likes that, always has.

"Yea. She was a good lady, kind, generous, sweet. She could make you feel better without saying a word, just a smile and secret wink. I think she would have liked you and Hardison a lot." he admits, folding and unfolding triangles in the paper, making a crease. It's easier than looking at them, then thinking.

"What did you do? Did you run away?"

"I was ten, Parker, I couldn't run away."

"I did."

"You're something of a special case, babe." Hardison says, and she shrugs. "What happened to the shop?"

"It failed. Father was never the best at business but without Mom, he was useless. He went into oil, Gramp's business, left us alone most of the time. Latchkey kids, you know. When he did come back he was...mean, drunk." Eliot traces the long, white scar, bites his lower lip. "Violent."

"I don't get it." he says, his voice flat the way it only gets when he's really angry, so angry he doesn't bother looking like it. "When you talked about him, to Martin, you sounded happy."

"It's not all or nothing, Hardison. There were good moments, when I could just be his kid. Fishing trips and working on cars and playing card games. Sometimes he'd say 'attaboy', and I didn't care if it was a joke, cause for a second I could almost believe it."

"But you must have been angry, right?" Parker asks. "I was so angry, back then. I just wanted to..." She rips apart a piece of saltwater taffy before popping the halves into her mouth. It's just silly enough to make it past the context, and he chuckles.

"Not for a while. I had these excuses, in my head. I must've done something stupid or rude or been in his way. I was a pretty shitty daughter." he says, mirthlessly.

"Then, when I was fourteen, I uh...I went downstairs to get a glass of water in the middle of the night, and I saw my little brother, icing a bruise. He got bruised a lot, because he was a scrapper. He liked to climb trees, play football. He crashed his bike like once a week. But it was weird, because he always let me deal with them. I had a lot of experience, at that point." He pauses, because he can see the kitchen in his head, the white plastic of the appliances, the soft, barely there glow of the open microwave, because turning on the lights meant you could see them out the window. Even as a kid, he was smart like that.

"When I tried to help him, he said no. No, you can't, cause you'll get mad. I figured he was embarrassed, that he'd something stupid, that kids do. I said something like 'I don't care how it happened, I just want to make you're doing it right.' So he...he rolled up his sleeve and I could see it was a handprint, bottom of the palm and four fingers, and it was too big. It was too big to be a kid his age. I knew it, and he knew that I did. He was so smart, he was...a fucking genius, I swear." He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. He can't remember the last time he'd thought of this, that he'd really taken the time to go through it.

"I iced it for about a half hour and I didn't say anything the whole time, because I knew how it would come out, and I didn't want him to think I was mad at him. But just as we were heading back to his room, I asked him, how long? And he said, 'since Mom died.' I know now there's no reason to hit a kid, no reason at all, but when it was me, I thought maybe. I liked girls, and that was wrong, but even worse I didn't want to be one. But my little brother, he was a good kid, not like me, he was _good_. If he was hurting him too, did he even know the difference?"

"Did you call the cops?" Hardison says, even though he must know the answer.

"My father knew the cops. My father drank with the cops, and it was different back then. A little discipline would do a kid good, they thought. No, I taught my brother how to hide, and when was bad, when he really needed something to punch, I could take a hit. It was good practice, actually."

"How did you leave?" Parker asks, her voice taut as a tightrope. He's still parsing out how to feel about that, the fact that just hearing about it is affecting them. They hear sad stories every day, and his isn't special, not at all.

"Army, I enlisted at eighteen. I wanted to get out of there, needed to get out there, to do some good. Change the world. We got into a fight, the night before a left. A real ugly row. He said that I was abandoning the family, that I was a traitor. I said maybe that was true, but I didn't start it. The first person to turn his back on our family was him, we weren't his kids, we were his toys. He kicked us around and said we were stupid to hope for anything more, and I was sick of it. He said that if I walked out that door, I couldn't come back, and I said I wasn't planning on it. So..."

"You haven't been back since." Hardison completes. "Do you want to?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know. The person everyone thought I was, that person's dead. Who I am now, I don't know if he'd fit in there anymore. There's so much trust in a town that small, and I trust very few people." Just two, if he was being honest. Four, if he was feeling generous and pragmatic. "It could be dangerous too, if anyone tried to use my family to get to me."

"It doesn't seem fair. You're this amazing man, and they'll never know." Parker pouts, leaning her head on his shoulder, and the familiarity is soothing, like ice to a bruise. "Not even your little brother." He remembers then, that Parker was an older sibling too, remembers the deep, aching sadness at the core of that, and he wraps his arms around her, holds her as something to be coveted.

"I keep tabs on him. He doesn't live in town anymore, but he didn't go far. He had more of a sense of loyalty, to the family name. I think it would take something magical to get him to leave. But he's not in Father's home anymore, he has friends, and work. It may not be all that he wants, but I think he's happy. That's all that really matters."

* * *

By the time they make it to the brewpub's apartment, their apartment, degrees of separation abandoned on the west coast for love and the cost of rent both, he's exhausted. Eliot pulls out a takeout menu for the only Thai place that uses just the right level of spice before unceremoniously flopping onto the couch.

"Get the usual." he says, voice muffled by the fabric, but he can't be bothered to move right now. He hears Hardison placing the order, the words themselves unimportant, just soaking in the sound of them. The sound of his footsteps comes closer, and he turns his head just enough to see him.

"Here." he says, handing him a paper wrapped treat. "It's the fudgie bar of emotional vulnerability, you've earned it." Eliot levels his best annoyed glare at him.

"This is stupid."

"Oh so you _don't_ want the fudgie bar?" he says, trying to take it back, but he moves it out of Hardison's reach.

"I didn't say that."

"So you accept the fudgie bar of emotional vulnerability?"

"Please stop calling it that."

Of course, by the time they stop bickering, there's a bite missing, and suspicious traces of chocolate on Parker's lips. She quirks an eyebrow at him, pleased with herself, and kissing her is exactly what she wants. He does it all the same, because who is he to deny her?

It hits him, halfway though his Penang Beef Curry, that this is home now, with Hardison's teasing and Parker's sly thievery and more love than he sometimes knows what to do with. That it will be his home wherever they go, whatever they do. Dying for them was a given, has been a given for years, but with his past laid out before them, it makes him want to live for them. Live his best, happiest life, as long as they can.

The next morning, he starts researching rings.


End file.
